London has been battered by 50mph winds that have felled trees and caused travel chaos. Powerful gusts swept across the capital as the Met Office issued a yellow "be aware" weather alert for most of the country.

In a series of co-ordinated dawn raids detectives swooped on 11 men - including at least four cargo handlers employed by British Airways.

The international drugs trafficking operation is said to have used corrupt insiders at the UK’s biggest airport to allow millions of pounds of worth cocaine to be imported into Britain.

A British organised crime gang based in west London are alleged to be at the centre of the plot while police are also investigating links to notorious Mexican drugs cartels.

The gang are suspected of bringing in at least £4-5 million worth of pure cocaine each year through Heathrow’s cargo shed.

The drugs were destined for the streets of London and the Home Counties and had a street value estimated to be tens of millions of pounds.

The 11 men were seized in raids on addresses in London and Essex and those held were aged between 25 and 53.

Among the arrests was the alleged ‘Mr Big’ of the drugs ring, a man said to be in his 40s who drives a top of the range Porsche.

A number of those arrested lived at addresses in Southall near Heathrow.

Scotland Yard said the arrests were the climax of a year-long intelligence-led operation to dismantle ”a well-established, organised criminal network” responsible for importing and distributing millions of pounds worth of cocaine.

Police say the drugs would be hidden in legitimate cargo containers on BA flights to Heathrow from Mexico City.

Once the aircraft arrived at the terminal, handlers would quickly remove the drugs from inside the legitimate cargoes and package them into new containers.

Couriers would then liaise with the cargo handlers, collect the drugs and pass them on to criminals for distribution in London.

The gang “embedded” insiders within the organisation of Heathrow’s cargo handling operation to allow the drugs to be moved out of the airport without raising suspicions.

Insiders were paid by the gang to create false paperwork for containers to transport the drugs so they would appear legitimate if they were checked by managers.

Detective Superintendent Stephen Ratcliffe, of the Met’s Serious, Organised and Economic Crime Command, said: “These arrests are the culmination of a year long operation and a lot of planning and hard work.

“We have dismantled what was a sophisticated, well oiled, well established operation involving a network of criminals from the cargo handlers to the couriers to the distributors all the way up to the top of the pile.

“This was a sophisticated operation to evade what is a high level of supervision at Heathrow’s cargo handling facility.”

Detectives believe the gang have used the smuggling route through Heathrow for several years.

A British Airways spokesman said : “We are giving the Metropolitan Police our fullest support in this investigation.”